Private WILLIAM EDWARD WHITE

32, Fairfield Road, Winchester
Service numbers 4/3002 and 200904. 1/4th Battalion, The Hampshire Regiment
Died in Turkish captivity, Mesopotamia, 22 July 1916

Life Summary

William Edward White was born in Winchester on 24 May 1895, the first child of William and Kate White. He worked alongside his father in a local ironmongery firm before enlisting with the Hampshire Regiment on the outbreak of war. William served in India and Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) and died, aged 21, after being taken prisoner by the Turks following the surrender of the British garrison at Kut-al-Amara.

Family Background

William’s father was born in Romsey in 1867 and spent most of his life working as a tinsmith. His father, Robert (born 1827), was also a Romsey man who worked as a carter. His mother, Emma, was born in Southampton in 1832.

William White Snr married Kate Elizabeth Scivier in Winchester in 1894. Kate had been born in Braishfield, near Romsey, in September 1868. She was the daughter of Charles Scivier (1838-1913), a labourer from Michelmersh, near Romsey, and Elizabeth Bevis (1847-1891) who was born in Hursley. In 1891, three years before she married William White, Kate was working as a maid at 15, Clifton Road, Winchester, the home of Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Wheatley, a retired officer in the Royal Artillery.

By 1897 William, Kate and their young son had moved to 32, Fairfield Road, Winchester (the address then and now), which had only been built two or three years earlier. The house was to remain the White family home through to the Great War and beyond. In March 1898 Kate gave birth to a second son, Herbert, and then in December 1900 a daughter, Dorothy.

William attended Western Infants School before moving on to St Thomas Church of England Boys’ School on 2 February 1903. He left St Thomas’s on 23 July 1909, shortly after his 14th birthday, to start working. By 1911 he was a whitesmith’s apprentice with Messrs Kingdon & Co. ironmongers in Winchester High Street, where his father also worked.

Great War Record

William enlisted with the 4th Battalion, The Hampshire Regiment on Salisbury Plain, immediately after the outbreak of war in August 1914. When the battalion split into two – the 1/4th and 2/4th - he was assigned to the former with the service number 4/3002. After volunteering for overseas service, he sailed to India in October, arriving the following month. Four months later he was with the 1/4th Hampshires when they deployed to Mesopotamia and entered a theatre of war on 18 March 1915.

William would have taken part in the 1/4th Battalion’s campaigning in Arabistan and southern Mesopotamia in the spring and summer of 1915. This included a gruelling month spent countering a Turkish-Arab threat to the British oil pipeline at Ahwaz in Arabistan (part of modern Iran). The Hampshires then took part in the capture of Amara, on the River Tigris, on 4 June and the key town of Nasiriyah, on the Euphrates, on 25 July.

In early December, William found himself among a 200-strong force of Hampshire soldiers that formed part of the British-Indian garrison at Kut-al-Amara, between Basra and Baghdad. For five months the Turks besieged Kut which eventually surrendered on 29 April 1916 and William and 12,000 other British and Indian were marched off into captivity. He died – possibly from sickness or wounds – on 22 July 1916. He was 21 years old. (For more details of the siege of Kut and the 1/4th Hampshires’ actions in Mesopotamia in 1915 see pp. 377)

It is not known whether William ever reached a prisoner-of-war camp in Turkey. If he did, then he died very shortly after arriving. Alternatively, he may have fallen ill and died on the march from Kut. News of William’s death took a long time to reach England. An entry in the Hampshire Regimental Journal of July 1917 states:

WHITE - On July 22nd, 1916, whilst a prisoner of war, Pte. W. E. White, 1/4th Battalion, Hampshire Regiment (son of Mr and Mrs W. White, of 32, Fairfield Road, Winchester), formerly in the employ of Messrs Kingdon & Co., High Street, Winchester, aged 21 years.

Pte. W. E. White, 1/4th Hants Regiment. son of Mr and Mrs W. White, 32, Fairfield Road, Winchester, has died while a prisoner of war presumably in Turkey. The official notification received by his parents this week states that his death took place on July 22nd of last year. Pte. White, who was 21 years of age, was formerly with Messrs. Kingdon & Co., ironmongers, of Winchester, where his father is also employed. Much sympathy has been felt with Mr and Mrs White in their long period of anxiety, and especially at the still sadder information which reached them this week.

Family aftre the Great War

William White’s father died in Winchester in 1936, aged 69. His mother Kate was still at 32, Fairfield Road in 1939 along with his sister Dorothy and her husband Frank Hutchings. Kate White died in 1948, aged 79. Dorothy was still living at the house when she passed away in 1986, at the age of 86. No record can be found of William’s brother Herbert, though it is possible that he married and moved to London.

William White is listed in the Winchester War Service Register.

Medals and Memorials for William Edward White

Private William Edward White was entitled to the 1914-15 Star, the British War Medal and the Victory Medal. He is buried in Baghdad (North Gate) War Cemetery, Iraq (GR. XXI. X. 40) and is mentioned on the memorials at St Matthew's and St Paul's churches, Winchester. William’s name also appears on the St Thomas Church of England Boys’ School memorial, which is now held at Kings School, Winchester.

Researchers – DEREK WHITFIELD and CHERYL DAVIS